Parakeet Sounds and Vocalizations

Parakeets are very smart creatures and are used to living in gigantic flocks with thousands of members. They would use a variety of calls and chirps to stay in contact with each other, to warn of danger, to track down their children, and much more. These same noises and chirps are used when they are pets in your cage!

Note that while other parrots can be quite loud - including cockatiels and macaws - parakeets are not extremely loud. If you neglect them they may cry out for attention, but if you take good care of them, they will be peaceful and happy!

Contented Warble
The most common sound heard by most good parakeet owners is the contented warble. Parakeets do this while they are falling asleep, while they are listening to music, hanging out on your shoulder, preening themselves. This is sort of like a cat purring.

General Fweeping
Parakeets love music and will sing along with songs as best they can by fweeping merrily. They won't normally just spontaneously do this if it's quiet, but if there's music playing they'll add in their own voices. Note that if you leave your parakeets alone you should leave some music playing to keep them company. In the wild, there was always noise. If there was NOT noise it was a sign that there was a predator lurking around. So to leave your parakeets in a dead silent area is going to give them a lot of stress.

Ack-Ack-Ack
Remember the movie Mars Attacks? Every parakeet owner I know say that the Ack-Ack is a form of Parakeet Talk. It's sort of a parakeet's way of saying "Hah hah!" or "Look at this!" or "I'm so excited and I just can't hide it!" :)

ARK! ARK! ARK!
Where ack-ack-ack! is a light, cheery cry that usually involves the parakeet bobbing its head up and down in sheer abandon, there's a separate cry that it makes when for example a flockmate is trying to pull her tail out. This is a loud angry ARK! ARK! ARK! which is a STOP IT RIGHT NOW YOU JERK!!! call.

High Pitched Yelp / FWEEP
This is a cry of distress. With our three parakeets, if one of them gets separated from the other two it will begin to yelp. This is sort of a "Lost! Lost!" cry, and the other parakeets will all out to it to help it find its way back home again. In fact, sometimes if Bob leaves the room after being in there for a while, the other parakeets will assume he's "lost" and start yelping for him, to help him get back to the safe home. He has to go back and tell them he's OK, that he's just going to be away for a little while, and they settle down. We call this their "FWEEP!" :)

Human Speech
You can Teach your Parakeet to Talk if you're patient and your parakeet is interested in learning. Male parakeets are easier to teach than females, and young parakeets that were hand raised are the easiest to teach. Don't worry if your parakeet doesn't learn to talk, not all do. Your parakeet will still be able to communicate to you in its own warbles and fweeps.

Other Noises
Parakeets are VERY smart and love making interesting sounds. So parakeets learn to make noises like cell phones ringing, trucks backing up, or whatever other sounds they hear in their environment. My parakeets don't talk, but I've taught them to sing "Fee-Bee" like a chickadee, with the first note high and the second note low. They love that, and it drives the chickadees outside crazy :)